A letter written in ancient Hebrew dating back to the First Temple period, around the sixth or seventh century, was returned to Israel on Wednesday. It was probably found in the Judean Desert caves.[UPDATE (8 September): More here. I now think that this fragment is probably genuine.]Archaeologists estimated that it dates back to the sixth century BCE which joins two other documents in this time period in the Israel Antiquities Authority Dead Sea Scrolls collection. The script on the extremely rare ripped document starts with "To Ishmael send...", hinting that it is a fragment of a letter.
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[UPDATE (9 September): Epigrapher Christopher Rollston has published some concerns about the papyrus. He makes many good points. I have replied provisionally to one of them. Developing ...]
This is potentially an extremely important discovery ... but ... you knew this was coming ... we should be skeptical of its authenticity.
It is unprovenanced. The owner reports that it was sold to his mother by an antiquities dealer in the 1960s. It was not recovered in a scientific excavation. There is no indication that the dealer even claimed to know its place of origin, although we may learn more about that in time.
As I have said for a long time, our default assumption should be that an unprovenanced inscription is a forgery unless and until scholars present a credible case that it is genuine.
All that said, it could be the real thing. I very much hope that my initial skepticism turns out to be wrong and that someone makes a solid case for its authenticity. I look forward to hearing more next week.
Meanwhile, all praise to the owner for turning it over to scholars for analysis.
I may have more to say later, but that's all I have time for today.
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